In exploring the workings of governments; the bureaucracies that define how they interact with the citizenry, and how the citizenry are manipulated for political and economic purposes; I have learned that there is a great deal of confusion in the average citizen concerning the formation of governments and the power available to preserve those governments.
A good example is the lack of understanding of our own historical foundations. Europeans discovered the Americas and associated islands over 250 years before some of the British colonies seceded from the British Empire, and established their own governments. For over two and one half centuries the laws of Britain along with the colonial laws, approved by Britain, provided to the citizenry their social, economic, and political structure. With the increasing development of the colonial economies and the abundance of resources for manufactures and trade, England continually taxed the Colonies of their productive labor and resource wealth. Economic disparity with England, reinforced by the social and political disparities between England and the Colonies, was the motivation for colonial self-determination and desire for complete control and ownership of the wealth generated by the Colonies.
Thus was born the Declaration of Independence; a very strange document, whose validity cannot be argued in any court, since it predates any court that its formulators would recognize as a valid court. The authority claimed by those who wrote this document is placed by them above all other. However, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution with its Bill of Rights, are in such great conflict with each other, that they mutually exclude the authority of the other to be the vehicle by which society may establish, promote and preserve its government; to enforce the authority of one is to negate the authority of the other. It is impossible to believe that both of these documents are valid in their exclusive philosophies.
From the Declaration of Independence:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,…} {…That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.}…..{ We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the Name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” » Read more: The Constitution Vs The Declaration of Independence
